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Windows 8 Consumer Preview on Samsung 7 Slate

After the release of the Windows 8 Consumer review, I wanted to know how it’s working on my Samsung Slate 7. I wanted to have both, Windows 7 and Windows 8 on my slate so that I can change when it’s necessary. There are different possibilities to achieve this. Because my S7S only came with a 64 GB SSD drive, I decided to install Windows 8 on a VHD. The advantages are that I only have to create a VHD file on the Windows 7 C:\ drive and therefore don’t have to repartition my hard disk. And with a VHD file I can easily transfer it to another(it’s just a file), but although it’s a file I have a functioning Windows 8 that is running directly on the hardware.

I have followed the following steps to install Windows 8:

Make sure you have the latest BIOS version installed. You can download the latest firmware from Samsung.

Download the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool. It will allow you to create a bootable USB stick (or dvd, but who cares about DVD ;-)). Start it and format a USB stick according to the screen shots:

Create a VHD disk either via Disk Management or via command line. I created a dynamic VHD because I don’t have so much free disk space left:
Command line:

DISKPART

CREATE VDISK FILE=”C:\VHD\Win8.vhd” TYPE=Expandable MAXIMUM=25000

SELECT VDISK FILE=”C:\VHD\Win8.vhd”

ATTACH VDISK

EXIT

Everything is ready to install Windows 8. Let’s do it! Boot from the USB stick.Start the slate and press once the Home Button to show you the boot menu. If you press it more than once, it will automatically continue and not show you the boot menu. Choose to boot from your USB stick that you have plugged in (with Win 8 on it).

When it’s asking for language settings, press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt. Attach the created VHD as follow:

DISKPART

SELECT VDISK FILE=”D:\VHD\Win8.vhd”

ATTACH VDISK

EXIT

Continue the Windows setup and choose the customized installation so that you can choose on which disk you would like to install Windows 8 (I will add more information and screen shots later when I have some time).

After the installation is done, run Windows Updates. For me it installed less than 10 updates.

Run the Easy Software Manager and install the required drivers. That’s basically it. Please note that it takes several minutes to start the tool the first time. It shows as not responding, but just keep it running, it will show you the missing drivers after a while.

I will extend my post as soon as I have some more time. Enjoy Windows 8 on your slate!